THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION THE INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY: LOOKING BACK AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE. Washington, D.C.

Transcription

1 1 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION THE INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY: LOOKING BACK AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE Washington, D.C. Friday, December 7, 2012 PARTICIPANTS: Moderator: Panelists: STEVEN PIFER Senior Fellow and Director, Arms Control Initiative The Brookings Institution AVIS BOHLEN, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Former U.S. Ambassador JOHN WOODWORTH, Consultant, International Relations and National Security Affairs Former U.S. Ambassador WILLIAM F. BURNS, Distinguished Fellow U.S. Army War College * * * * *

2 2 P R O C E E D I N G S MR. PIFER: Okay, well, good morning. Let me welcome you all to the Brookings Institution on this cool rainy Friday. I'm Steven Pifer. I m a Senior Fellow here and I direct the Arms Control Initiative and I'll be moderating this panel. Tomorrow, December 8, will mark the 25th Anniversary of the signing by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces which actually has a much longer name. I think it's the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Nuclear Forces and it's about a paragraph long. So, I won't do that there. When we say INF Treaty, that's what we're talking about. Now, the INF Treaty was quite a departure in US-Soviet arms control efforts. Up until the INF Treaty, in the strategic arms process you had a negotiation or negotiations that talked about limiting the levels of strategic forces or sometimes just limiting the growth in strategic forces. INF was a breakthrough in that you had a treaty that required real reductions. Under the treaty the United States and the Soviet Union were each required to eliminate all of their land based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers. And as a result, in June 1991 at the end of the eliminations period in the treaty, the United States had destroyed 846 missiles and the Soviet Union had destroyed 1,846. Now this negotiation took place at the height of the Cold War. Its genesis goes back to the 1970s where when the Soviets had reached strategic parity with the United States, and that was codified in the SALT II Treaty signed in At that time there was concern in Europe that with the deployment of the Soviet's SS20 missile that there was a disbalance in nuclear forces in Europe that could undermine

3 3 NATO's deterrent capabilities. The result was a decision taken by the Alliance in 1979, the Dual-Track Decision which on one hand, the deployment track meant the deployment of new American INF missiles in Europe while the second track, the negotiation track was about a negotiation that might limit or obviate the need for that deployment. The negotiation's success was by no means foreordained. In fact, the first rounds of negotiations in 1983 ended when the Soviets walked out once the first American missiles had been deployed in Europe. But the negotiations resumed in 1985 and in 1987 produced a success basically adopting the zero-zero Treaty that had been proposed by President Reagan back in A proposal in 1981, that I have to say, I, at the time, was very skeptical would ever be accepted. And that was one of the interesting things about INF. But it really was a significant breakthrough, both for arms control and the Cold War. So, today's panel we're going to talk really about three questions. We'll talk about the history of the negotiations. What happened in both the rounds from '81-'83 and then again from '85-'87? And then second, we'll talk about what are the factors that led to the success that ultimately produced the treaty in And finally, what are lessons that you can extract from the INF experience that might then be applied to futures arms control efforts? Bearing in mind, for example, interest now in NATO about doing something regarding non-strategic nuclear weapons. We're also introducing this Arms Control Series paper which you should have received a copy of. If not, there are copies on the way out. "The Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces: History and Lessons Learned." Before introducing the panel, let me take a moment and just say one, thank you to the Plowshares Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York which made possible both this event but also publication of this paper. I'd also like to note that

4 4 this afternoon my Brookings colleague Marvin Kalb will be moderating a session at the AFSA Building, 21st and E Street at 1:00 with former Ambassadors Roz Ridgeway, Rick Byrd and Jack Matlock, who will also be looking at the INF experience. And as I look out among the crowd it's good to see that in addition to those of us on the panel there are a number of INF veterans out there. We have really a good panel today to talk about. Everybody here was in one way or the other connected with the INF experience. So, I'll do brief introductions. You have the fuller bios in the handout. We'll begin with General Williams Burns who had a service of more than 30 years in the United States Army. When I first met him he was the Joint Chiefs of Staff Representative on the INF talks. Once he retired from the Army, he was the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. And he'll discuss the history of the negotiations between 1981 and Our second speaker is Ambassador John Woodworth. Had a long career in the office of the Secretary of Defense working primarily on nuclear policy and NATO policy. He was initially the representative of the Secretary of Defense on the delegation but later became the Deputy Negotiator in the rounds from And he'll discuss those factors that led to the success of the negotiations. And our third panelist is Ambassador Avis Bohlen. She had a long career both at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and at the State Department including as my first boss on the NATO desk where she introduced me to the fun of INF. She also served as our Ambassador to Bulgaria and was Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control. And she'll talk about lessons for the future. After opening comments we'll open the floor and be happy to take questions. So, Bill, why don't you start? GENERAL BURNS: Thank you very much. The INF negotiations were a

5 5 series of firsts. First negotiation to actually attempt to reduce and dismantle nuclear weapon systems. As Steven mentioned negotiations before that basically set limits but the limits were high enough so it did not control the growth of nuclear weapons at the time. It was a first to actually eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems. Now I say nuclear delivery systems because the INF Treaty did not count warheads and didn't eliminate warheads because basically we didn t know how to do that in a verifiable manner. And the third first I would mention is just that it was the first agreement where verification measures were established and the compliance to these measures was double checked by on-site inspection for the first time. Now, you might ask why do we have to have an INF negotiation in the first place because before that each side developed what systems it wanted and there were limits but as far as what systems you wanted to have was up to the country involved. But in the late '70s the Soviet Union began to replace it obsolescent SS-4 and SS-5, the kinds of missiles that they tried to put into Cuba with a new system. A solid fuel system, a relatively accurate system, a system with three warheads and it was mounted on a mobile launcher. So, in a matter of weeks the launchers could be moved almost any place within the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact area. The Soviet Union was relatively clever with coming up with an INF system like the SS-20 that could strike most of NATO Europe but could not strike the United States, the thought apparently being that having a system like that in a crisis could threaten Europe and not threatened the United States. And therefore decouple NATO Europe from the United States nuclear guarantees or nuclear assurances. In late 1977, Helmut Schmidt, the Chancellor of West Germany at the

6 6 time, in a speech argued and urged that NATO do something to thwart this SS-20 deployment. This led to the II Track approach that Steven mentioned. It took the United States about two years to determine exactly what should be done. We did not have a missile system under development comparable to the SS-20. So, in the summer of 1979 Defense Secretary basically ordered the Chiefs to come up with a system. And the Pershing 1 system in Germany, 800 kilometers range, was found to be able to have its range extended with another rocket motor to go about 1800 kilometers, which was sufficient for the first time to fire a tactical missile from NATO Europe to strike inside the Soviet Union. It was finally agreed between the sides that we would have negotiations. The negotiations began in late November We immediately found that there was absolutely no agreement between the sides except that we would have negotiations. The interesting problem was that from the Soviet point of view, they needed to block the Pershing 2 deployment and preserve the SS-20 deployment. They believed that this could be done, first of all, by going through the motions of negotiation while at the same time attempting to mobilize those forces in Western Europe that were opposed to nuclear weapons. Various religious groups, peace groups and so forth. And then also, to build up enough public negative response to the Pershing deployment to ensure that elections would reflect basic majority opinion opposition to Pershing 2. None of these happened but the German side, of course, was very concerned about being singularized. They had 108 Pershing 1 missiles that could strike into East Europe. Now they were going to get 108 Pershing 2s that could strike Soviet territory and they didn't want to be alone. So, again, the Chiefs were asked to come with another system that could

7 7 be deployed and this was a ground launch cruise missile, the Tomahawk missile of the day which was mounted on a mobile launcher, one of the poorer ways of mounting the missile. Usually it was on ships or on aircraft. Negotiations began with the zero-zero proposal which was, as Steven said, looked upon rather skeptically by the cognoscente, if you will, in Washington. And while the White House insisted that that was a firm position I think everybody thought that's a great going in position but when do we move? And the Soviets thought this also. The zero-zero proposal basically said that we will not deploy if you eliminate your SS-20s. They said they will not tolerate deployment of SS-20s. If you start to deploy SS-20s then there's no more negotiations. We negotiated for two years. There were a number of issues that divided the sides. What weapons were to be negotiated? The geographic scope, are we talking about global or regional limits? The Soviets argued regional limits. We argued global limits and a lot of the reason was because of Taiwan and Japan being very concerned that SS-20s would be moved to the east part of Siberia and threated those countries. And China was not unaware of this kind of threat. So, another issue was the inclusion of shorter range systems. We actually had not come up with a policy when we began the negotiations but we realized that shorter range systems can become longer range systems and if they are, as we were doing with the Pershing, and if they're immobile that gave them a greater free reign. So, at that time the Soviet side said no. We're not talking about shorter range systems. And then another issue that divided the sides was the inclusion of other NATO countries systems, the British and the French. The Soviets insisted that because they were part of NATO we must include their systems and we argued that no, this is a bilateral negotiation between the sides and I pretty well have that whole line still

8 8 memorized. For two years, we basically sparred. In February of 1982 we tabled a treaty. The draft treaty basically encapsulated the zero-zero proposal. It was 14 pages long and the 14th page was a sheet, blank, except for verification annex to be supplied. Because at that point we had not figured out how to verify the thing, but we insisted the Soviets it had to be verified. They were skeptical but fairly quiet on the issue because at that time the last thing they wanted were intrusive on-site inspections which were inevitable in you're going to have a really verifiable agreement. We proceeded with plans to deploy. Our first deployments took place in November of Ambassador Kazinsky on the Soviet side said, if you deploy we will walk out. They did. I remember we had three different final plenary statements, a very harsh one, a moderate one and a friendly one. Friendly one if they decided not to walk out because we didn t want to have the wrong statement. We gave the moderate statement because both Ambassadors agreed that this is not something that we should draw too many red lines, if you will, on. The Soviets indicated that they would take analogous measures if we deployed and they did. They moved some shorter range missiles forward into Czechoslovakia at the time and also into East Germany. And there were riots in the streets. People didn't want them. They also put several submarines with cruise missiles off the Atlantic Coast that could threaten cities from Boston down to Washington. They lasted a few weeks, as I remember; they had problems with one of the submarines. It had to surface. We sent a Coast Guard cutter out to ask if we could be of assistance and they said, no. After a few weeks, they withdrew the submarines. And in talking to then Soviet officials, now Russian, they said that at this time they really realized that the game

9 9 was up. We are going to deploy Pershing 2 and they had to get back to the negotiations. It took them about a year to do it. In March of 1985 the second series of negotiations, if you will, started. Coincidentally, with the start of the negotiations was President Gorbachev's succession to the presidency of the Soviet Union. And we ran into perestroika and glasnost and this affected the negotiations. Because suddenly the Soviets started to really talk about issues and there were various proposals made on each side. Proposals where we would each have 100 missiles or 120 missiles. This was an evolving discussion. It was hard negotiations but still in evolving discussions. The Soviets dropped the British and French systems. They dropped their requirements that we include all nuclear delivery systems including aircraft. And finally, they agreed to zero-zero which is back where we started five years before. This ultimate agreement included all ground based missile systems with ranges of kilometers. In other words up to strategic systems. They also included the SS-23 which we insisted went 500 kilometers or more. They said it didn't. It probably didn't but they said so what? They threw it in the pot. I think this was sort of the first step in the dissolution of the Soviet Union because it was the first arms control negotiation that they, in a real sense, lost. I might just end by saying that we had two very fine leaders on our side, Paul Nitze, one of the wise men of World War II. And had been involved with negotiating with the Soviets for years, a hard man with the Soviets, a hard taskmaster with his delegation but very effective. In the second part of the negotiation he was followed by Ambassador Mike Litman who had been his deputy in the first half, Mike did yeoman work in pulling together the details of the negotiation. I remember in actually the early fall of 1987 the

10 10 summit had already been scheduled. They were going to sign the Treaty and Mike called me one day and he said, we still have 99 points of difference in the draft treaty. And we sorted those out one by one and then Mike did a tremendous job in convincing the Senate that they should adopt the treaty. We found that, I remember in a White House meeting, the President was told that we had 82 votes for the treaty. And he said, what's wrong with the other 18? We ended up with three votes against the treaty. So, it was an arms control treaty that was adopted by a large majority of the American people, by the Soviet government and by the Senate. Thank you very much. MR. PIFER: Thank you. John, what made this treaty, why did it work? AMBASSADOR WOODWORTH: Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. Anyway, thanks Steve. It's a pleasure to be here on the panel with yourself and Bill and Avis. So, I'm enjoined to talk about what accounts for the success of the negotiations. And it's an interesting question. And the answer is not immediately obvious really. The smart money in 1981 was not going toward any likelihood of an agreement being reached with the Soviets in this area. And we all recall President Reagan's famously improbably proposal at the beginning of the negotiations of zero-zero. And the astonishing thing is that end of the day the treaty that came out of this whole enterprise basically corresponded almost exactly to what the President proposed back in And you really have to stand back and wonder how in God's name did this ever happen? It's so improbable. Well, let me try to quickly go through six reasons that seem to account for the success of the negotiations. There may be others but these seem to be core reasons. Let me start with changes in the impact of political change during the course of

11 11 these negotiations. When we began as Bill has indicated, the negotiations really were characterized by just sheer and utter deadlock. And the negotiations when on for the first phase of the talks through two years really getting nowhere, learning a lot about what each other thought but not making any progress. And of course, Bill talked about the walk-out that the Soviets did in 1983, the long delay before negotiations could be restarted. But the interesting question in all of this is Gorbachev. Was Gorbachev really the critical variable that led and accounts for the success of the INF negotiations? And, you know, it's difficult not to conclude that obviously the total answer is complex but he indeed was a vital reason to what happened. Gorbachev brought -- (inaudible) negotiation that had been characterized by a deadlock for so long, he brought an entirely different synergy. It didn't reveal itself immediately but it gradually unfolded during 1986 and especially during And it was remarkable in how it played itself out. And we often wonder, and I wonder still today I must say, how did he ever bring along the military, foreign affairs and intelligence bureaucracies in Moscow? It's an intriguing question. But he did. But he did. Not everybody. And we know that some of those who were opposed to what he was trying to do took their revenge in August of 1991, for example. And even today, you can even hear rumblings from time to time in Russia about Gorbachev gave away too much in INF. Still today even. But he had a remarkable impact on the overall negotiations and on the relationship with the West. Now he didn't do this alone. He had a kindred soul, I think, in President Reagan. Both had a strong distaste for nuclear weapons and they both were prepared, they really in their own way sort of thought outside to box, and they were

12 12 prepared to take bold steps that really had never been seen before that could lead toward an agreement of the magnitude that emerged. It was really quite astonishing but it took two leaders to do that obviously. So, one other thing that needs to be mentioned is that Gorbachev in his own approach to all of this had his own good and sound reasons in doing this. In his efforts to reform the Soviet Union, which he felt was essential to the survival of the Soviet Union; he felt there had to be an improvement in East-West relations to lend support to that effort. And INF was an immediate and important target that he could seize on to do that. And he did so. But one of his strong motivations were his own domestic goals. And this was important. Second thing, NATO solidarity. You know it's funny when you think back, you know the whole process of consultations and the resulting cohesion that came from that on the INF and missile issue during this time extended over a long period of time. It really began back in 1979 with the '79 Dual Track decision. A lot of work went into that to make that happen. And it continued all the way through the whole course of the negotiations until And this didn't just happen. This took a huge effort. It took a creative effort as well. We worked with the NATO allies very closely in preparation of the principles for the negotiations, even back in When they established they were to be the basis for the negotiating track. And these really served as the basis for the US effort in the negotiations and it carried us all the way through. The important thing on that is that through all the consultations that took place, and they were intense all through this time at all levels, the allies back us strongly and consistently and firmly in the negotiations. And this was critical. And then, in addition to this, remarkably enough, one of the most amazing things that the allies did,

13 13 especially the Basing Countries was hue (?) to the decision to deploy these weapons. This was really critical. This really had to be done and they did. And they did this in the face of dramatic and strong political opposition. For some of these governments, at the time, in the height of the Cold War, if you will, it took real political courage to do this. And a lot of those governments were really hanging on the edge of survival. But they hung in there. And this was critical, one of the vital factors in the success of the negotiations. Well, thirdly, reconciling the mutual interest of the Soviet Union and the United States and then of course by implication NATO. The interesting thing about the talks is that really at no time during the full breadth of the talks did the Soviets ever seriously, ultimately entertain an agreement that would condone or sanction US deployments. Now, they toyed with this from time to time particularly in the second round. For a while, they had one proposal that played a little bit out. It was never strong wherein they would have removed the INF missiles from Europe but they would retain their missiles in Asia. And we would be allowed to retain an equivalent number on our own territory. Well, this wasn't a very interesting proposition to us, at least, unless for example San Francisco had in mind targeting Chicago or something. But even the Soviets eventually came to think that this was not a good idea. It was Gorbachev who, in fact, took off the table their insistence on keeping missiles in Asia. We hammered them very hard over this. We had our own interests in not preserving Soviet deployments that would, in fact, continue to threaten our Asian allies. While much of the negotiations was really built around the European problem, the Asian allies were still and remain important to us. And they were then. So, ultimately the Soviets came to think that their best interests lay in the

14 14 total elimination of INF missiles. They were willing to sacrifice their huge force of missiles in order to prevent any deployments of American missiles. They decided that was in their best interest. And that's quite remarkable and totally unexpected. Very quickly, also on the shorter range missiles, this was an interesting dimension in the talks. We entered the talks with the idea that we would just put collateral constraints on these things. And for a while the Soviets seemed -- we never engaged it too seriously until the latter part of the talks. And the Soviets, the same thing. Okay, we'll talk about this. But interestingly, the Soviets, themselves, in 1987 really took the lead in raising the proposition let's eliminate all of these shorter range missiles with ranges from kilometers. It was an important set of missiles. For NATO, this was a bit of problem. It took NATO some time and some difficulty to come to grips. Are we really going to do this? Isn't it enough just to take out the INF missiles which were the BE. We made this difficult decision in order to better link US and NATO deterrents. Now, we're going to take out all the rest of these missiles? It was a tough decision but, you know, when the proposition became real it was just really hard to refuse. You really couldn't refuse it. So, that became part of it. Now, as a collateral effect of this whole thing, the Germans, who in the meantime had for a long time been deploying Pershing 1 missiles that fell into this range band, in the face of the possibility and the probability at that point of what came to be called a Double Zero Treaty, to them it was untenable for them to retain their Pershing 1 missiles. And they unilaterally agreed to disband that whole force of missiles. Now, did the Soviets have this in mind when they were doing this? I think so. I think so. And they played it very cleverly. And this was a great success I would say for the Soviets. So, they did meet important interests of their own in coming to

15 15 this agreement, even though at the beginning you never would have foreseen this. You never would have foreseen it. Well, for a fourth reason. The place, let me be very brief on this, the place of strategic insurance. Both sides deployed robust strategic arms. And, interestingly, when you read some of the accounts of the Soviets, that some Soviet participants have written after the event, as they came through their thinking process -- I'm thinking, in part, particularly for one important a guy, Detinov, in the talks. He was really one of the people we respected more than perhaps any other on the Soviet side. He wrote an essay and he said, you know as we came through this and we came into the second phase of the negotiations we finally concluded for a range of reasons that, you know, at the end of the day our strategic arms which were, obviously, very robust would be enough to deter. If they are enough to deter the United States, they're going to be enough to deter France and Britain and China. We can rely on that. And in many ways the United States had the same calculation. It was simply more complicated, though, because of extended deterrence that related to our allies. At the beginning, even, before the whole INF missile episode began extended deterrence was the critical element of NATO strategy. But we decided with Dual Track decision that, no, we had to reinforce the linkage, thus the decision. But then in the course of the negotiations and in the eventual elimination of all these missiles, we kind of circled back to where we began. That it really was the strategic arms and extended deterrence that was going to be the central part of NATO strategy. And that's where we ended up. So, both the Soviets and the Americans had strategic insurance that gave them a freer hand to make the decisions in INF they did. And I think that was very important.

16 16 Fifth reason, role of innovations. And let me just touch here briefly only on verification. Because really the verification measures of the INF Treaty became a hallmark of the agreement. One of its most distinguishing features. Step back for a moment, if you will, with me to think about this. When we really got into serious negotiations on the INF talks which was not until in 1987, frankly, you couldn't really get your head around what measures you would need until you really knew what the limitations were going to be. And while we had a lot of work that went on in Washington and all of that it was mostly theoretical and speculative and hypothetical. And suddenly we faced, wait a minute, here we are. Here are the limits. Now what are we going to do about it? It wasn't easy to come to that. The prevailing mantra up to that time for verification of strategic arms was national technical means. You really had not come to grips in any serious sense with what do you do when you really want to move way beyond that? And you had to start with conceptual thinking. You had to break this down into its parts. You had to break it down into how do you exchange data? What data? How do you carry out on-site inspections? How do you monitor the destruction of missiles and equipment and launchers and sites? And finally, even how do you carry out a permanent on-site monitoring system? This was all whole cloth and had to be devised. The details had to be brought to, those proposals had to be formulated and then you had to negotiate this stuff. Steve, allow me just to -- I don't want to carry on too long. Allow me one just short excursion. In the midst of this in 1987, well into '87 and well into the talks when we finally getting into verification, Sandia Labs had prepared a tabletop model of a perimeter portal monitoring system based around Votkinsk. We knew Votkinsk was our problem where strategic missiles were manufactured and also the INF missiles. So, they built this tabletop model and they brought it over to Geneva just

17 17 so we could enlighten ourselves about it, the US negotiating team. And so, we set that thing up in a room one day and invited the Soviets over to take a look. Come on, take a look. We've got something we want to show you. And they came over. They filed into the room and I can remember they came in, gathered around this thing. It was a big thing. It was big. And they were looking at it and at first there was just kind of silence. It was just silence. And the silence seemed to say, is this serious? You know. And then there was sort of murmuring that started to go on and even some laughter, mild, mild laughter. The laughter seemed to say, you've got to be joking. And no, we weren't joking. We weren't joking. This was actually serious. And of course, over the course of the negotiations it was actually this model, this model, the details of this model that we really integrated into the measure on the permanent, on the perimeter portal monitoring system in Votkinsk. A really, you know, an extraordinary innovation. Well, anyway, I make this point about the verification measures overall because it was an important reason for the success of the negotiations that we could achieve these with the Soviets. And by the way, the Soviets buying into this stuff it just defied every preconception we could have had about the Soviets. They just, this was not their tradition. This was not their tradition. And it was not easy for them to buy into this. No doubt Gorbachev's new thinking opened this, played an important role in this. But the verification measures also were important in securing Senate support for the treaty. Because we knew in the Senate if we did not have strong verification measures, we could never get this through the Senate for ratification. And we hammered the Soviets on this. We told them, we said, this is a treaty breaker. If you don't buy into this, there will be no treaty. And we hammered it and hammered it and hammered it.

18 18 Okay, final point which is the conduct of multilateral diplomacy. The negotiations took place at many levels. Obviously in different context, in Geneva, in capitals, at NATO, and then beyond that, the participants who did it. Obviously at the heads of State it was very important indeed. The heads of State, Reagan and Gorbachev in particular. I mean, many of the major moves in INF were made by pronouncements by the leaders. For example, Reagan's opening proposal at the beginning of the talks for the zero-zero outcome. And Gorbachev was very good at this, too. Most of the Soviet moves in INF in '86 and '87 were announced publicly by Gorbachev who always had an eye on the public impact of these moves. But that's where the source of -- and but important lesson out of all this is that the two leaders on both sides were deeply engaged in the talks. They were committed. They were engaged. They had reasons. And this was essential for bringing the bureaucracies in both countries, frankly, along. In both countries, yes, it was essential. And it's something to think about in any future important negotiation. And we have to remember, too, I think the very critical meetings that George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze had. They were critical in breaking through on important measures that had to be agreed in the treaty, especially in verification in the latter months of the treaty of the negotiation. And there were other critical meetings between capitals. And finally, let me just echo what Bill said about Paul Nitze and Mike Litman. I mean here we had two people who really were some of the stars of the whole episode. And Paul, you know, what really set him apart during this time, he was leading the INF delegation during a time of one of the most difficult periods of the East-West confrontation. Not only in negotiations that he conducted there, he was constantly on the road going to capitals around Europe. Sitting down with the leaders, heads of State,

19 19 other leaders with our European allies assuring them everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. Stick with us. Stick with us and hold tight. Stick with us. And Paul had a unique stature that allowed him to do that with huge credibility. I mean it's sort of the like the West, the future of the West rested on his shoulders in a way. I exaggerate but still. And then, in the second phase of the negotiations Mike Litman really gave a consummate demonstration, I think, of negotiating skills, diplomatic talent. Trying to think, it was one of the really distinguished stories in recent US diplomatic history. It was a remarkable performance. And one we should all be thankful for. The important point in all of this is that people make a difference. Would all of this have happened had you had different people? Well, we can't answer that question really but we had people who could make this whole enterprise work on the American side and ultimately even on the Soviet side. So, people do make a difference. You don't always get the right cast of characters. In this case, we had the right cast of characters to make this thing happen. Thanks. MR. PIFER: Thanks, John. Avis? AMBASSADOR BOHLEN: Thank you, Steve. And I would also like to say thank you for organizing this initiative. I think it's been very stimulating to look back on this 25 years later with all we know what's happened. And I just would like to say what a pleasure it is to see so many former colleagues out there in the audience. Although as I look some of you I have to say my memories are of hurdling down the ski slope behind Mike Litman rather than sitting around one of the tables in the Botanic building. Well, I'm sort of in the position of cleanup batter. I get to say what it all meant and what are the lessons, if any, that we can draw for the future. I think we can all

20 20 agree it was a major milestone. This has been covered by Bill and John and I won't go over it. Just first in the history of arms control and in the history of nuclear weapons. But I think most important the treaty marks the beginning of the end of the nuclear arms competition that more than anything really defined the Cold War when we look back on it. And in this sense it marks the beginning of the end of the Cold War itself. And it was a very successful example of a three way negotiation with our NATO partners, non-participating but highly vocal and very influential as has been mentioned. Before trying to define the lessons and how they apply to the future, maybe we should recall two essential features. First, we're talking about a very specific category of weapons and of course, we can't really consider the treaty separately from the decision to deploy the Pershings and the cruise missiles. And it was a highly political decision as previous speakers have noted, driven by the anxieties of European allies about the SS-20, about the failure of SALT II to deal in any way with the weapons threatening Europe as articulated by Schmidt in his famous 1975 IISS speech. As the SS-20 didn't really change the equation of extended deterrence because US strategic systems were still available to defend Europe and for that reason there were many in DC who opposed the deployment of any new systems. This was not a battle that was won easily but like so much else the credibility of the US deterrent was inseparable from psychological confidence in US leadership. And at that particular point when this debate starts in 1977 that was at a low ebb if you think back to the neutron bomb setbacks in the Third World and so on, Carter Administration. And so the result was a deployment that really lacked a compelling military strategic rationale. And if you look back at the discussions in the HLG, NATO really had to struggle to come up with a rationale. The second feature is that this occurs, the INF Treaty, occurs at a very

21 21 specific moment in history. It coincides with the coming to power of Gorbachev and I think we can see in retrospect that was clearly the beginning of the end. For Gorbachev, the accumulation of hardware and weaponry represented a crippling and unsustainable economic burden but also he drew the lesson that it had not brought any extra security to the Soviet Union. And, in fact, had just worsened relations with Europe, with the rest of the world and had ended up isolating the Soviet Union which was certainly the case in the early 1980s. And he saw the way out of this dilemma through, among other things, arms control, mutually agreed reductions that would lessen the burden and lessen the tension. And if you remember INF was not the only subject to which he turned his attention. He kept throwing out proposals for long range missiles, for CFE stopping nuclear testing, everything. And in the end, INF proved the easiest to negotiate. I think precisely because, as John mentioned, it was not perceived as an essential element of strategic deterrence and we ended up where we started with a strategic deterrent to reassure our allies. And if you remember, it proved much, much harder to reach a deal on the reduction of strategic weapons because these were the crown jewels and people really had much more of a deeply embedded stake in making sure that they remained at the right level. So, very quickly, the lessons, not -- I don't think I've overlapped too much with John but first of all, never shut the door on negotiations and there's a double lesson here. We never would have obtained allied agreement to the deployments if we hadn't agreed to pursue a parallel arms control track. And there was a huge uproar, many of you remember, when the Reagan Administration appeared briefly to back away from the arms control track. And this

22 22 continued willingness to negotiate really sustained allied determination against strong anti-nuclear headwinds in there domestically during the four long years between the decision in 1979 and the beginning of deployments. I mean these were a very difficult period. And the fact that we were continuously willing to negotiate really helped us through this. And then, of course, we were helped by the Soviets walking out of the talks once the deployments began. And that is the sort of reverse of this lesson because it was a huge mistake and they had to back down a few years later. And I would say this is a lesson that we might do well to heed today. I think it's a mistake to impose preconditions on negotiations whether with the Soviets or Iran or anybody else. Anyway, that's a side thought. Secondly, as both previous speakers have mentioned alliance solidarity was key. There would have been no treaty had not even our most nuclear allergic allies come to believe it was essential to stand up to the Soviets. And we, in turn, headed their political need for arms control. This was not something we would have done naturally but we did it to bring the allies along. Third, we had a bargaining chip. Even Gorbachev would probably not have negotiated on the SS-20 if we had not had systems on the ground. Four, be careful what you ask for. We asked for zero-zero outcome and much to the general surprise this is what we got. This was not the intention of the original proponents of the zero option who saw a way to block negotiations for all time to come. And those of us who favored trying to reach some kind of agreement with the Soviets opposed it for those reasons. But Gorbachev and, I have to say, Ronald Reagan proved us both wrong. And I would say the original proponents of zero-zero were a bit disgruntled by how this came out, so.

23 23 Fifth, arms control expertise matters. It's not easy to turn a political commitment into a treaty. And we were able to do so thanks, not only to the political leadership as John mentioned, but also to the skill and dedication of the negotiators. And here I want specially to mention Mike Litman, who was really an inspired leader of delegation. But also, the decades of shared US-Soviet experience of discussing these issues in Geneva, now those were strategic talks but I think much of the same expertise was carried forward into INF. So, what does all this mean for today? First of all, it's obviously a vastly changed landscape. We've had the reduction of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons since We had a different relationship with Russia. However prickly, it's not the relationship of the Cold War. And it's no longer a bipolar world. But there is one category of weapons that the Russians have which is still of concern to us and these are the non-strategic weapons of which Russia has several thousand. And we've been trying to include these in negotiations with the Russians ever since the Clinton Administration really without getting very far. Congress has repeatedly expressed concern about them and in the proceedings in the ratification proceedings for New Start they enjoined the administration to begin negotiations on these systems within a year. But the obstacles are formidable. First of all, there's a huge numerical disparity. NATO is now down to about between 160 and 200 nuclear weapons in Europe and Russia has about four times as many. Secondly, Russia has greatly increased its dependence on these weapons since the end of the Cold War. And, in effect, they play the same role that US nuclear weapons did during the Cold War period of flexible response. They are a compensation for inferiority in conventional forces and Russia now explicitly relies on the

24 24 threat of nuclear weapons to repel a conventional attack, "when the very existence of the Russia State is under threat." And unlike in INF, we have no bargaining chip. In the be careful of what you ask for category, even if the Russians did agree to the negotiation that we want on the non-strategic weapons their price might well be unacceptable. They might request, they might insist on the permanent removal of all US weapons from Europe, a longstanding goal. And I think we should also bear in mind that at this point even though NATO has specifically stated that it remains in nuclear alliance, some of our European allies are as Mrs. Thatcher might say, "a bit wobbly on this issue," and might not find such a demand unacceptable. They would press for the inclusion of third party systems, another old chestnut that's been around. Or they might seek to be paid in the coin of missile defense. So, I would have to say that the outlook is not hopeful. Some have suggested and Steve would be, I'm sure happy to elaborate on this but that the US should offer to put all nuclear weapons, strategic and non-strategic on the table. And we might, in some form, be able to trade a reduction in US non-deployed strategic warheads for Russian reductions in non-strategic weapons. More likely I think are the negotiation of transparency, measures of sort of along the line of CSBMs. So, we will have to wait and see but we can keep in mind what INF tells us. Keep the door open to negotiations. Be sure we have our NATO allies with us. Be clear what price we're willing to pay for reduction of these systems. But in the end I would say the past is another country and really we are in another era now. And INF was a truly remarkable achievement that opened the door to even more sweeping changes that have left the world a safer place and we should be thankful for that. Thank you. MR. PIFER: Thank you, Avis. I might just make a couple of comments

25 25 that I think illustrate some of the points that you made about the changes on the Soviet side here. By the time the treaty was signed I'd actually moved on. I was at the Embassy in Moscow in December And Bruce Berton, back in the back there, was the Deputy Director on the Soviet desk and he got us a quick copy of the treaty. So, we're looking through this treaty and find some of things like there are going to be 25, 30 American inspectors living full-time in this place called Votkinsk, about 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains. And as far as I could tell at that time and what research I could do, there had never been an American in Votkinsk. It had been building weapons since the time of Peter the Great. And it had been a closed city since Peter the Great. So, I was able after some negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get permission. I said, look, I want to go to Votkinsk. You don't have to take me to the missile plant. I just want to go see the city because I'm going to be asked questions by Washington. What's the food like? Housing, medical facilities? And I said, no American's ever been there. And so, after a little bit of negotiation they broke down. They gave us a closed area exception. We got to out and they did take us out to the missile factory. In fact, I got to ski around the perimeter. You know, it was I think the first ever portal or perimeter (inaudible). But in terms of the flexibility then, it also showed about -- there was one particular contact, a guy by the name of Sergei Kortunov at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who really was I would (inaudible) persuaded the treaty would not have been implemented had we dealt with a typical Mr. Nyet Soviet diplomat. I mean this guy wanted to get things done. And one issue came up with cargo scan. Cargo scan was an x-ray machine. But it was a 20 ton x-ray machine designed to take an x-ray through a railway

26 26 car, through the container, through the missile to establish that, in fact, the missiles that came out of the plant were not prohibited SS-20s but permitted ICBMs. Under the terms of the treaty, the port of entry was to bring this thing to Moscow. And he's thinking, gosh, how do we get this thing 1,000 kilometers from Moscow to Votkinsk over a Soviet rail and road system which is not particularly great. And so, I casually mentioned well there happens to be a perfectly good runway out of Izhevsk which is only about 20 kilometers from Votkinsk. And he pauses for a second and he says, okay, I'm going to go back to my boss and tell him you suggested a one-time exception to the INF treaty to fly this thing to Izhevsk. You go back to Washington and tell them it was my idea. And again, it had not been that kind of creativity; it would have been I think pretty hard to get all the pieces lined up. But it was, I think, a reflection of Gorbachev that within a year or two that kind of process was beginning to filter down into the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs which was not an institution noted for its creative thinking. But with that point, let me go ahead and open up the floor to questions. I would ask please state name and affiliation and it would be nice if at the end there's a question mark to what you have to say. Greg. MR. THIELMANN: I'll start with a comment. John mentioned the right cast of characters I think -- AMBASSADOR BOHLEN: Identify yourself. MR. THIELMANN: I'm sorry. Greg Thielmann, Arms Control Association. We have the right of cast of characters on this panel. And I think looking

27 27 back, we had the right cast of characters among the INF negotiators for which I think the US should be very grateful. My question is, I guess, mostly directed to General Burns. It's always struck me as a bit of mystery and certainly an irony that the Pershing 2 system was, at least as I understand, designed to have a range arc that would not include Moscow. I don't know if that's urban legend but it was certainly part of my talking points. And as far as I know, the Soviets never accepted that and to this day believe that the Pershing 2 threatened their strategic targets in the city of Moscow. Can you shed any light on the design, the development of the Pershing 2? What the system's specifications were and why there's a political orientation in that? GENERAL BURNS: Yes. I would first of all; there was no military requirement for the Pershing 2. It was a political requirement. There was a meeting in the Pentagon in the summer of 1979 where the Secretary of Defense had been told that we need a system that can strike into Soviet territory from Europe. What do we have? The Air Force immediately backed away. The Navy said, we have ships at the sea but we're not going to get close to the Soviet Union with them. And the Army didn't say anything. So, the Army got the message. The Army did have the Pershing 1A in Germany which had a range of 800 kilometers. There was a Pershing 2 on the drawing board which was going to upgrade the missile but the range was going to stay at 800 kilometers. The reason being that there was a decision made at Key West in the late 1940s limiting the Army as to what weapons it could have. And the Air Force was very jealous about these limitations continuing. However, since the Air Force was not interested, the Army ended up being told what can you do with the Pershing 2 to extend its range? Martin Marietta was the prime contractor. Martin Marietta said we can probably extend the range to 1600-